The Palm Beach Murders by James Patterson (the read aloud family .TXT) 📕

is that Special Agent? Or perhaps some other title you guys made up?”

Otto merely smiled.

Halsey, on the other hand, was freaking out at the sight of the cuffs in my hand. He looked like a schoolboy who’d just watched his teacher pull out a whipping cane.

“You’re not putting those on me. I know my rights. I get a phone call!”

I shook my head. “Jamie, calm down. You still have the chance for this to go relatively easy.”

Halsey turned to his captain. “Kurtz—do something!”

“Kid, let her put the cuffs on and get this whole thing over with.”

“No—no way!”

And then he went for it. Some primal part of his brain made the calculation. Fight was impossible, so he chose flight. Perhaps he thought his youth, combined with a small element of surprise, would do the trick. With Otto busy with Kurtz, he bolted and attempted to go around me, out of arm’s reach.

So I dropped down, crouching on my knees and using my fingertips for balance on the boat deck, and kicked out my left leg. His foot hooked over mine and BAM, down he went. He probably didn’t know what had happened until he kissed wood and blood began to gush from his nose and mouth.

“Kid, I told you,” Kurtz said with a sigh.

Within a second, I had a knee in the middle of his spine and was cuffing the brat’s hands behind his back—an indication that we could go the uncivilized route, too. His body began to shake, and at first I thought he was trying to throw me off. But then I realized he wasn’t fighting. He was crying.

“W-why are you doing this to me?” he blubbered through tears.

I removed my knee from his back but kept steady pressure on his wrists as I leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Because you took a young girl, a beautiful girl with everything ahead of her, and then you murdered her.”

“I didn’t do it!” Halsey said. “I’d s-swear on anything I didn’t do it!”

“You murdered her and then you and your captain buddy over there buried her body in the cold, wet sand with nothing but an empty beer bottle for a headstone.”

“W-what?”

“You put her family through more than a week of living hell, all because, what…she wouldn’t sleep with you?”

“Jamie, for God’s sake, don’t listen to her!” Kurtz cried out. “She’s trying to psych you out!”

“Please, please, I’m telling you the truth, I didn’t even know she was dead! The last time I saw her she was drunk, sure, but she was alive!”

I pulled Halsey up to his knees. His face was a wasteland from all the crying and bleeding.

“Well,” I told him, “we’re going to give you one last chance to see her again.”

Chapter 27

KATE (continued)

The building looked official enough. Gotta hand it to you, Quinn—procuring a CDEMA facility? That was an effective touch. Even stoic Captain Kurtz swallowed hard when he saw the official government seal.

By this time, I’d given Halsey a towel to mop off his face, allowing him to regain some semblance of dignity. But he was still petrified. I almost felt bad for the punk.

“Come on,” I told him. “She’s in here.”

The moment I pulled back the tarp, Halsey’s face turned white and then a strange shade of purple as he tried to hold back the tidal wave of bile rocketing up his throat. Otto, fortunately, got him over to a metal slop sink in the corner of the room before he could vomit all over the body.

By the time we stepped inside the facility, I had already received your text, Quinn, telling me that the corpse under the tarp wasn’t Paige Ryerson. No matter who she was, the girl could still be used as an effective prop to shock our two suspects into admitting the truth.

Jamie Halsey was clearly rattled. But Kurtz was another story. Ever since we’d set foot on the Hostile Wake-Over, the captain had been the coolest of customers. And you know the old riddle, Quinn. Who sleeps the most soundly during his first night in prison? The guilty.

Otto helped Halsey clean himself up more thoroughly—which was no easy task, considering the kid’s hands were still cuffed behind his back. Then he brought him back over to the table. Halsey’s face looked like he had traveled to the far side and back. What do the kids say? Worst. Night. Ever.

“Is that her?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Otto replied.

“I swear to God, on my parents, on my life, on everything…I did not kill her. Someone else did this.”

I watched Kurtz carefully. He said nothing. Expressed no emotion whatsoever. He just stared at the corpse on the slab like he was looking at something a deep-sea trawler had dredged up from the ocean floor. Whatever this was, it didn’t concern him in the least.

That’s the kind of person who could stalk a young girl, grab her, strangle the life out of her, and bury her body.

And consider Kurtz’s advantages. He was mobile, thanks to the yacht. He was afforded the same protections as Jamie Halsey. Nothing ever blew back on the kid. And Kurtz could be confident he’d enjoy the same kind of immunity. After all, he was a virtual member of the family.

I’m convinced we’ve found our killer.

Chapter 28

QUINN

“Tell me about the last time you saw her,” Quinn asks.

Jamie Halsey is seated in a chair so that he’s facing Quinn directly. Behind Quinn: the corpse of the unknown woman. This arrangement is not accidental. Quinn will be watching his suspect’s eyes as much as listening to his words.

“I don’t really remember. I was kind of drunk myself.”

Quinn’s expression doesn’t change. “Try harder. This is your ass on the line, not mine.”

“Okay, okay.” He glances over at the corpse behind Quinn, who notes the movement of Halsey’s eyes. “I do remember her friends laughing like lunatics—they were really drunk. And I think Paige…Ms. Ryerson…was dancing with Jake.”

“Captain Kurtz,” Quinn says.

“Yeah. I struck out, so maybe he thought he’d give her a